


This is What it Takes

by CaptainHoney



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky accidentally adopts, Bucky has an undercut, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sam Wilson is a Saint, Steve Rogers is full of rage, Stucky - Freeform, Surgery, Violence, Wakanda, foul-mouthed old men, how do i even tag, unpleasant fluids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-07-28 10:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7636144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainHoney/pseuds/CaptainHoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky almost had each other again, until Bucky decided to go back under. Now Sam is trying to keep Steve occupied while their friends in Wakanda hatch a plot for intensive supersoldier deprogramming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: The Only Living Boy in New York

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! This fic is pretty much finished bar some editing on the last couple of chapters so you should get a chapter more or less every day. 
> 
> Some general content warnings (vaguely spoilery maybe): this fic contains descriptions of mild-medium(?) violence, recovery from surgery, and the aftermath of self-harm. It also contains blood and a small amount of vomit. 
> 
> Specific warnings from the prologue: mild violence and a racial slur (slur is in Romanian)
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

_here I am,_  
 _The only living boy in New York._  
 _Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where,_  
 _And we don't know where._  
Simon and Garfunkel, ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’

NEW YORK

Steve feels like he’s always chasing someone just out of reach. His feet carry him automatically along Brooklyn’s familiar routes but instead of memories taking him to the malt shop or the laundrette he keeps ending up outside yoga studios and boutique mayonnaise stores. Every dark-haired man is a knife twisting in his chest. The ghost of Bucky haunts Brooklyn just as much as the ghost of what the borough used to be.

He spends increasing amounts of time in the Avengers Tower, reading history books and devising endless strategies and contingency plans. Every recounting of acts of violence claws at his chest: _was that Bucky? Did they make him do this one too?_ He learns that Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president he’d signed up for and one of his childhood heroes – _‘Look Ma, he’s sick like me, and he’s President! That means I can be President some day too!’_ – had authorised the development of the nuclear bomb. He reads about the tens of thousands of people killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sees the pictures of children with cancer caused by radiation, and wonders what it was all damn well for.

**…**

BUCHAREST

Bucky dreams of a cliff, rows of people marching over its edge in orderly lines. Sometimes they’re people he’s killed and sometimes they’re his fellow soldiers, faceless thousands of them marching into the trenches, falling into the mud. They pile up, a mountain of tangled limbs in olive drab, reeking of blood and rot and piss. Sometimes he’s there, dressed as the Winter Soldier, wearing a necklace of gangrenous toes and barking orders to the soldiers as they go over the cliff. And sometimes he’s them, marching blindly into the void over and over again.

He tries not to sleep.

Bucharest is full of evidence of attempts to change its nature. Bucky squats in the ruins of a half-built hunger circus, washing his face in the rainwater that runs off the dome. A group of street children frequent the building; they try to pinch his stuff the first day and quickly regret it, but not enough to leave him alone. They call him Serghei; their names are Alin, Oana and Madalena, and they are all under the age of twelve. Bucky buys them food and magazines and they go to internet cafes and collect information for him, news updates on HYDRA and the Avengers. They teach him Romanian beyond the swearing and military commands he already knows (although they teach him some new swears as well) and he teaches them how to use knives. He tells them about ‘the old country’ like it’s the funniest damn joke in the world.

‘You kids are damn lucky, y’know that? There were some older kids on my street who were missing whole limbs because they had to work in the factories and the machines ripped their arms off.’ He performs a complicated mime of an arm getting shredded by gears. ‘None of these fancy child labour laws you got nowadays.’

‘Is that what happened to you?’ Oana asks, pointing at his arm, and Bucky makes a fist involuntarily.

‘Why didn’t their parents work instead?’ Madalena butts in. She’s eleven, the oldest, but she still believes in parents.

‘They did. Everyone had to work.’

‘What did you do?’ Oana is demanding and intrusive. She’s the one who Bucky found with her hand in his stuff while the other two hung back on lookout.

‘I had a paper run,’ he replies confidently, then frowns. ‘No… my- my friend did. My parents had money, but he… he was sick, but he wanted to help his ma, so he went down to the corner store all confident and asked for a job. He-‘ Bucky starts laughing at the memory. ‘He borrowed one of my shirts so he’d look nice and he barged in there, could barely see over the counter, and practically ordered the guy to give him a job. Only got half a block on his first day before almost busting his heart, so-‘ Bucky is laughing so hard he’s practically wheezing ‘-so every day he’d pick up the papers, cocky as you’d please, then he’d duck ‘round the corner and I’d be there on my bike and I’d have to deliver the whole damn lot. He tried to make me take part of his pay but I’d sneak it to his ma behind his back. Man, he hated me for that.’

‘Did he get better?’ Madalena asks.

‘Huh?’

‘You said he was sick, did he get better?’

‘He got so damn much better he made the papers,’ Bucky says, then breaks into laughter again. The kids think he’s strange and they tell him so.

He spends a couple of hours every day trying to recall memories. Mostly he focuses on Steve, patching together stories from their past that he recounts to the kids later (they’re largely apathetic but he produces more _turtă dulce_ for every story they pretend to listen to). Memories of Steve make his heart ache like he’s dying but it’s all worth it. Sometimes the… _other_ memories come whether he wants them to or not and the kids won’t see him for long stretches at a time. He tells them he’s going away for work but they’re pretty sure he’s unemployed, or else he wouldn’t be living in a half-built hunger circus with a bunch of homeless children. Sometimes he doesn’t remember what he does or where he goes until he’s back in the squat with blood dried in the joints of his metal arm and something grim turns up in the news.

Bucky finds a guy who can get him new identity papers. He ditches the fake passport he made at an abandoned HYDRA facility in North Bethesda and uses his new ID and a wad of cash to rent a shitty apartment. The kids stay in the abandoned hunger circus but they still keep their exchanges going, and on Children’s Day they even manage to guilt him into letting them come over for a meal. They eat like wolves then the kids all take a bath together, the three of them rotating in and out of the tub, splashing each other and flooding the bathroom. Bucky has a heated exchange with the downstairs neighbour who complains about the water, who calls him a _tiganu dracului_ and threatens to call the police, who gets a black eye and almost worse until Alin starts crying and the girls put themselves between the neighbour and Bucky. The kids don’t come back, and neither does he.

He moves between abandoned communist-era apartment blocks, brain twitching with memories. Mostly he tries to enjoy the city. He visits the galleries and the markets and the Palace of the Parliament. He walks along the river and spends his nights in jazz clubs until he’s finally exhausted enough that he has to go back to his squat and sleep. He dreams of the cliff, and of searching for Steve in the mass of people going over it. He misses the kids. He misses Steve like crazy. He loses three days and wakes up at three in the morning on the floor of an art museum, covered in blood. Two weeks later, Captain America finds him again. 


	2. Purgatory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> general chapter warning for violence! and Steve's foul mouth

WAKANDA

Steve feels like Snow White’s prince, finding the love of his life only to have them trapped in eternal sleep in a glass coffin. And he does love Bucky, quietly, fiercely, unspoken. It feels as natural as breathing, this love, and it takes him by surprise when he finds that this function has always been there. That only makes it all the harder to have Bucky on the other side of the glass, unable to hear even if Steve ever were able to work up nerve to say the damn words.

He fills a sketchbook with pictures of Bucky in cryosleep, drawn from every angle, until Wanda finds him filling yet another page with rows of identical faces and forces him outside. He climbs a new waterfall every day until he runs out of Wakandan waterfalls. He, Sam, Wanda and T’Challa all spar, and he adjusts to fighting without his shield. He hadn’t realised how exposed he would feel without it; even throwing himself into every dangerous situation he could, Steve has always fought defensively.

Wanda flourishes in Wakanda. She beats herself up over what she did to Vision and aches over her brother, but she finds a nurturing environment to learn about her powers. A group of Wakandan engineers work enthusiastically with Sam on a new pair of wings. Steve watches Wanda get stronger every day, sees Sam flying better than ever and T’Challa growing more into leadership at every moment, and feels like he’s stagnating. He’s under unofficial house arrest – albeit a ‘house’ that is technically the borders of an actual country – and he feels useless.

He misses American things. Steve and Sam swap lists of what they miss from home, the way he and the Commandos did when they were stuck on long missions: baseball, football, hotdogs, yellow taxis, angry pedestrians. He misses Bucky, even though he technically sees his face every day. He misses Tony, and Natasha, and Peggy. He stands on top of a waterfall, yelling Gaelic swearwords into the jungle, and misses being vulnerable and small.

‘We’ve got a mission,’ Sam says to him one day, and he perks up so quickly that Sam snorts. ‘You’re like a damn Labrador and I just said it was time for walkies.’

‘What’s the mission?’ Steve asks, pretending not to be offended. He has seen pictures of himself drawn as a Labrador. Tony stuck them all over Avengers Tower. Like a true patriot, Steve’s favourite dog is a Boston Terrier.

‘T’Challa says they’re having some border troubles, wants us to go check it out and see if we can do anything. You in?’ Sam is doing that thing where he pretends to be asking a casual question but is actually analysing every facet of Steve’s response. Steve pretends again, this time that he doesn’t notice that he’s having his head shrunk.  

‘Just lead the way,’ he says.

‘Oh, so you’re letting me be the leader now? Isn’t that your thing?’ Sam ribs.

‘You complaining?’Steve grins.

‘No, no, I’d love to be Captain Falcon.’ He puffs himself up, posing like Steve on the poster for one of those dinky propaganda films. ‘Sam Wilson, fearless leader of Avengers-lite.’

‘Y’know, I’m not sure ‘”Captain Falcon” has quite the same ring to it,’ Steve says. ‘Sounds like some kinda cereal.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m sure you’d know all about that. Surely you’ve had your face on a box of Patriot-O’s,’ Sam snaps back, jostling Steve with his elbow. Steve turns pink; his face has definitely been on a cereal box.

‘You jealous?’

‘Hell yeah! I’d love to have my face on a food product. Imagine going to the supermarket and running into some cute girl and she’s all,’ Same puts on a high-pitched voice and points excitedly, ‘”Oh my god, you’re the guy on the cereal! Let me just spoon you up!”’

‘That definitely sounds like a thing. I’m sure Tony the Tiger is rolling in pussy,’ Steve remarks drily, like it’s the kind of thing he’s said before a thousand times. Sam snorts in surprise, his eyes bulging.

‘I _know_ I did not just hear Captain-Blessed-America use the phrase “rolling in pussy”,’ he says, looking around for another witness. ‘ _Tell_ me someone else heard that.’

‘No one will ever believe you,’ Steve replies, grinning bigger than he has in a long time.

‘I’m gonna need a minute. I think I gotta sit down.’ Sam shakes his head. ‘This is a dark, dark day for America.’

Steve is surprised by how long it is since he’s laughed properly. He thinks he’s probably passed Sam’s test.

**…**

Bucky wakes to the sight of a giant panther coming out of the fog. He stiffens, muscles tensed to spring. Then the physical effects of being unfrozen hit him and he falls forward. He is caught; firm hands, but gentle. A familiar face. Handler? No, enemy: he remembers fighting the one with this face. He tenses again, ready for the attack.

‘James Barnes? Do you remember me?’ The enemy’s voice is gentle, accented. Bucky remembers him.

‘T’Challa.’ Not enemy. Not… friend, but… ally?

‘Good. Do you know where you are?’

‘Wakanda.’ Bucky is helped to his feet then sat down again on a leather chair. His limbs feel heavy, but pleasantly so. He is handed a cup of sweet-smelling liquid and sips it suspiciously.

‘Good, very good,’ T’Challa says, waving over a woman in a crisp white suit. ‘Follow the light, please.’

The woman shines a torch in his eyes. He flinches, but does as he is told. She holds up a stethoscope, turns it in front of him so that he can see it. She warms it in her hands, a kindness, and places it gently on his chest. He tries to control his spiking adrenaline by focusing on her face; she has kind eyes, soft features, dimples even when she isn’t smiling. Bucky trusts her immediately, which is strange, for him.

‘This is Dr Jahi, one of our very best.’ T’Challa is watching him closely; Bucky knows the look of someone who is assessing a potential threat. He tries to relax his posture further. ‘She has several degrees from Harvard University, with a specialisation in neuroscience.’ He sounds proud. Jahi is pleased; Bucky can tell by the fact that her dimples have deepened.

‘I’ve been working on a treatment plan for you,’ she says, ‘largely experimental in nature, but given the, uh, _variety_ of methods used to influence your subconscious, a conventional approach seemed unsatisfactory.’

Everything she’s just said has Bucky wanting to scream out of his skull. He starts shaking like he’s freezing to death, teeth rattling in his head. He whimpers.

‘I’ll talk you through every single step. We’re not going to do anything you don’t agree to first.’ He laughs at that, short and sharp, and tries to roll his eyes at her, but mostly his eyes are just rolling. T’Challa is all crossed arms and set jaw, but Jahi takes his hand. ‘I’m a doctor, James. Not a mad scientist. I’m not going to cut into you or strap you down. I’m not going to make you hurt anyone. Will you let me give it a go?’

He nods weakly, still shaking, then spits out through chattering teeth, ‘where’s St-Steve?’ Jahi glances at her king.

‘We’ve sent him away for a while,’ T’Challa says, ‘so he can’t interfere with your recovery.’

‘Why would he interfere?’ Bucky feels like he’s going to cry. He knows he sounds like a petulant child when he says, ‘I wanted him to be here when I woke up.’

Jahi squeezes his hand. ‘We know he’s important to you, but so do HYDRA. We need to make sure they didn’t do anything to try and exploit that bond.’

Bucky sinks back into the chair. He wants to punch something but his metal arm is a silver stump and the doctor has a tight grip on his other hand. He drags up a bunch of memories at once, forcing himself to remember _their_ training, scouring for any hint of Steve. _What if he was in danger every moment he was with me? What if he said the wrong word and I just reached out and snapped his neck?_ He jerks sideways and falls to the floor, clutching his stomach. Another doctor produces a bucket just as he throws up.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbles as T’Challa helps him to his feet again.

‘It’s alright. We have two months to make progress on this before Steve Rogers is due to return.’ T’Challa half-carries Bucky to an ornate lounge suite, upholstered in a dusky purple suede. He sits them both in comfortable armchairs.

‘Two months? Where’d you send the guy?’ Bucky tries to sound casual but the idea of not seeing Steve for another two months makes him miserable, no matter the likelihood of endangering him.

‘Sam Wilson is taking him on a number of missions, mostly located around Wakanda’s border.’ T’Challa makes a waving motion and a tray of tea is produced. ‘Steve is currently unaware of our treatment plans for you.’

‘Our hope,’ Jahi says, pulling up a chair of her own, ‘is that we will have made substantial improvements by the time he returns.’

Bucky considers. He thinks about the look on Steve’s face when he returns to find Bucky is back to his old self again, and smiles despite himself. ‘That sounds nice.’


	3. The Rabbit Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is quite a long chapter, content warnings for violence as per, plus medical descriptions. I think that's it but please shoot me a message if you want to know any specifics.
> 
> Hope y'all are enjoying it so far and don't be afraid to drop me a line and tell me what you think!

DODOMA

Sometimes what you really need is to punch some Nazis in the face.

Steve has taken this philosophy to heart, taking out a Zimbabwean HYDRA cell almost single-handedly while Sam is at the market. It takes some adjusting at first, fighting anonymously in actual camouflage gear and without a target strapped to his arm, but it feels good to be in motion.

Sam keeps receiving ‘intel’ and ‘mission briefings’ from a mysterious source but Steve has decided not to question it. He’s playing the part of the good solider – mostly – letting Sam take the lead so long as he gets to feel like he’s being useful. He lets things be simple, like they were during the war: he and Sam are the good guys, and the ones they’re fighting are the bad guys. Sam gives him these looks all the time, concerned or suspicious or frustrated, but Steve stays focused on the mission at hand.

He sits with Sam at a cafe in Dodoma, eating chicken pilau and drinking strong, black coffee. Sam is looking like he wants to ask a lot of uncomfortable questions so Steve focuses on his meal, trying to figure out the different spices and how much they would have cost in Brooklyn during the Depression.

‘You’re concentrating awfully hard there,’ Sam says.

‘It’s a… a game I play. Sort of a “Now and Then”.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Same has his therapist voice on. Steve rankles, but complies.

‘When I start missing Brooklyn too much – _my_ Brooklyn, before the war – I find something that I like now and try and figure out what it would have taken for me or my ma to get it back then.’ He gestures to their coffee cups. ‘Things like, I remember queuing half a block just to try and get Ma a tin of Postum, and now there’s a Starbucks on every corner in New York.’

‘You could’ve probably bought a car for the price of a frappuccino though,’ Sam jokes, and Steve laughs.

‘The first time I went into a corner store after I came out of the ice I almost had a heart attack!’ Steve’s face falls. He pushes a piece of chicken around his plate.  ‘The whole damn world changed. I was barely under the ice when they nuked Japan. What if I’d survived? What if- what if they made me drop the bombs? Would I have done it?’

Sam is still, face impassive. He’s quiet for several moments while Steve clasps his hands in his lap to stop them shaking. ‘You just said _what if_ you survived. Yet here you are, sitting right in front of me, seventy years after you supposedly died. Are you saying you don’t feel like you survived?’

Steve looks wholly miserable. ‘I don’t know. Sometimes I think I’m actually dead and this is Purgatory. What else could it be? All these awful, impossible things keep happening every time things seem to be working out. I keep finding Bucky, only to lose him again, over and over. I feel like I’m trying to atone for all these sins that have been committed since I went under but they just keep piling up and they’re burying me, and I can’t-‘ he chokes, then whispers, ‘I can’t breathe.’

‘You don’t have to atone for the whole world’s sins, man. That’s not on you.’ Sam takes both his hands and squeezes and Steve is so grateful for the touch that he feels lower than dirt. ‘No one expects you to carry that burden.’

‘But I’m Captain America,’ Steve says weakly, trying to smile.

‘Not any more you’re not. You’re just some anonymous jacked white dude, hanging out with his best friend, letting his food get cold like an idiot.’ Sam crosses his arms. ‘You don’t owe the world a damn thing.’

Steve smiles and eats the rest of his meal, because he feels like that’s what Sam wants. That night he confronts the HYDRA agent they’d been tracking and breaks his arm. He thinks about the Winter Soldier and what the Steve who went under the ice would think if he could see himself now, and breaks the other one. Then he slinks back to their hideout and cries silently until dawn.

**…**

WAKANDA

Bucky is walking through a field. There are trees on the edge of the field, their many leaves turning to orange and gold. Crocuses peek at him from the knee-high grass. To his right is a clear stream. There is a cool breeze blowing, but the sunlight is warm on his face. Small birds chase each other through the grass, dipping and diving around him.

The vision fades and he is lying on a gurney, Wanda watching over him. They developed this routine early in his treatment; it helps him come down after each new trial and procedure.

Jahi and Wanda help him sit up and move into a wheelchair and then to the lounge suite. His knees are knocking together and he supposes he must look ridiculous, but he refuses to lie inert in a hospital bed while they poke at him.

The lounge suite, the same purple set he was led to when they first woke him up again, is arranged by the windows in a room bigger than any apartment Steve Rogers ever lived in. The cryo-chamber has been removed but half the room is still full of medical equipment. The other half is the lounge suite, a kitchenette, a pool table, a TV; anything he and T’Challa and the doctors decide is both safe and helpful. He sleeps on the couch despite several offers of a proper bed, and the suede is stained with various unpleasant fluids expelled during recovery, but he won’t let them get him a new one. _I’ll only puke on it too_ , he tells them, spreading himself out on the couch protectively, _so why waste the money?_

This place feels like another universe, and sometimes Bucky wonders if he hasn’t fallen down some kind of rabbit hole. Sometimes real panthers come out of the mists, dwarfed by the statue guardian that watches over them. When they come Bucky sits with his face against the glass, just watching. Once one sat before him and they stared at each other, maintaining eye contact, for what felt like an age. Its face was so close that Bucky could see himself reflected it its golden eyes. Then suddenly it had turned and was gone, disappearing back into the jungle. He had felt afraid then, like he was just a tiny speck in a big universe. That night he’d had a hot, sticky dream about Steve that had started with them kissing and ended with him ripping out Steve’s intestines, viscera reflected in his golden cats’ eyes.

‘We had much more success this time,’ Jahi is saying, and he tries to pay attention. ‘The wire was successfully removed from your brainstem, and we’ve been able to confirm that the work on your spinal column is healing correctly.’ She holds a mirror up so he can see the surgeon’s work. She traces each scar delicately with the nail of her pinky finger. The touch is reassuring and makes him shiver pleasantly. ‘You can see where we’ve gone in at a different angle this time; it seems that was the real key to success. We had to reopen less of these previous incisions and were able to get right in there and get that wire out.’

Despite Jahi’s promises, they have still cut into him over and over. Bucky’s wounds close quickly and the doctors here use liquid bandages, and with the aid of a mirror he can see every scar whenever he wants. The last remaining parts of his metal arm have been removed, along with an extra inch of his shoulder – unavoidable, they said, due to the tissue damage. The point where the metal became flesh was charred inside from exposed wiring and lack of care. Bucky wonders how early on in what they did to him he became used to smelling like piss and barbeque. With every bit they cut away he feels like he’s becoming more of nothing.

Jahi waves a hand and a nurse brings over a kidney tray. In it is a bloody wire, thick as a woman’s pinky. ‘This is what we removed from your brain stem. It appears to be the neural connector for your arm, but I have a theory that it may also have played further part in your conditioning.’

Jahi is very thorough in her explanations of everything. He hates it, but he knows he’s marginally less uncomfortable each time.

‘You’re still recovering from the effects of the anaesthetic, but once you’re ready I’d like to see how you respond to some of the words designed to trigger your conditioning,’ she says casually, and Bucky freezes.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for that,’ he says through clenched teeth.

‘You will be fine, Bucky,’ says Wanda, putting an arm around him. He buries his face in her shoulder and groans. At first this kind of close contact was almost impossible, but Wanda has touched his mind; it seems rude not to let her touch his body. The truth is now he drinks up any physical contact like a man who’s been in the desert for, oh, seventy-odd years. Wanda will hold him as close as he needs and the only downside is that she isn’t Steve.

‘On the bright side, we’re fairly confident that’s the last of the surgery. You’ll be able to start growing your hair out again.’ Jahi smiles and rubs the shaved part of Bucky’s head. He flinches, but only a little.

‘I like it like this,’ Wanda says, flicking his bun. ‘It’s very fashionable.’

‘Me too,’ he replies. The lower half of his head is stubble, but he begged them to let him keep the rest of it. He didn’t want to look like one of those shell-shocked soldiers he saw once on a reel from the First World War, heads shaved and twitching, limbs missing, screaming and covered in scars. The hairstyle is very un-1940s and very un-HYDRA.

He and Wanda play a complicated card game that keeps them occupied for several hours. T’Challa is away on state business, and Steve and Sam have been gone for a month. He’s been having tests and surgery every day since they woke him up.

 ‘We’re ready for you, Bucky,’ a nurse called Darweshi calls. He looks up for a moment and Wanda lays down a winning hand, grinning smugly. Bucky throws up his arm in disgust and gets up to follow Darweshi. He shoves his hand in his pocket to suppress the shaking.

Darweshi leads him to The Room. He hates The Room; bad things have happened there. T’Challa has put up several inspirational cat posters in The Room, because T’Challa thinks he is funny. He is not, but Bucky appreciates that he is trying to help. The Room has a number of chairs, so that Bucky may pick a new one each time and none of them has to become The Chair, but once he has settled all the others are removed so really they are all The Chair. The Chairs are very comfortable but all have hidden button-activated restraints, like something from a villain’s hideout. There are guards in The Room; they are dressed like doctors and nurses, but they are heavily armed. He wishes these precautions were not necessary but they are, and they have been. One of the doctor-guards still has his arm in a cast.

He picks a chair and wriggles around in it while the others are removed. Jahi sits next to him, within arm’s reach. He wishes she would sit further away, but she insists. He knows Wanda is hovering in the hall outside; he refuses to let her be in The Room during treatment, but she will jump in if anything happens. She can take him down much quicker than the others.

‘Alright Bucky, you just sit back and relax,’ Jahi begins, ‘and I’m going to tell you a story, alright?’

Bucky nods.

‘Very good. Let’s begin.’ Jahi smiles reassuringly at him, then begins reading from a glossy, black tablet. ‘Once upon a time there was a friendly man who lived in a lovely house. Every day he got up and went to work, then came home and relaxed. He lived a nice, quiet life, but found himself _longing_ for something more.’ Bucky flinches and she pauses for the briefest of moments, then continues. ‘The man decides to go on a holiday, so he saves up some money and books in some time off work. He hires an old car, which is a bit _rusted_ , but it has good mileage. He starts driving down the highway and thinks about where he wants to go. The man decides he would like to go to the beach, so he takes the turnoff to route _seventeen_ and starts heading towards the ocean. He’s not tired, so he decides to keep driving all through the night, and reaches the beach at _daybreak_.’

Bucky is sweaty and shaking. He grips the arm of The Chair, nails digging deep crescents into the leather. Jahi pats his knee, but doesn’t pause in telling the story.

‘When he gets to the beach he watches the sunrise over the water. The sight is very beautiful, and the man feels calm and happy. He decides to go for a swim now, because the weather report said the day would be hot like a _furnace_. He swims in the cool, deep water, feeling the current move around him. He floats on his back. He swims for several hours, until it is _nine_ o’clock. Then he walks on the sand for a while, feeling it between his toes. He watches the seagulls and buys himself an icecream. He realises this is a very _benign_ sort of adventure, but he is still enjoying his little holiday. Despite this, he thinks he should probably do something a bit more exciting before he has to have his _homecoming_. So he hops back in his little car and gets back on the road, enjoying the drive and the feeling of salt water drying on his skin. He drives around for a while, then decides he wants to drive down highway _one_ , so he drives all that way. On the way he sees some fields, and some mountains, and a _freight car_. Then he goes home again, and he feels calm and happy after his holiday. The end.’

She looks at him expectantly. The left side of his body has gone slack, and his thoughts feel foggy, but he’s still there. Bucky manages a nod and she smiles, dimples deepening.

‘You’ve done really well, Bucky. We’re going to take a little break and then we’ll try another story, ok?’ She hands him a glass of the sweet drink he still doesn’t know the name of and he massages feeling back into his left side until he’s able to get up and have a walk around. He’s all pins and needles now and his brain still feels like its underwater, but Bucky is pleased. It’s a tiny step, really, but today he has tasted something like actual progress.


	4. From the Panther's Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fairly short chapter today because yesterday's was so long. The next chapter may take a little while because I've just realised an important scene I should be writing into it but I've also got work/assessment over the next two days so apologies for that!
> 
> Warnings this chapter for blood, mild violence and self harm.

WAKANDAN BORDER

Sam is running out of ways to keep Steve occupied. They’re back in Wakandan territory, because T’Challa has told them there’s very definitely going to be a militant group trying to cross the border any day now, but Sam can only keep up the pretence for so long. Steve is just too damn efficient, and losing his shield seems to have only made him more reckless.

Steve isn’t stupid, no matter how many jokes Sam makes about his muscles suffocating his brain. He knows there’s some kind of play, but he chooses to believe this is all Sam just trying to keep his mind off Bucky. He keeps making that choice even as they’re creeping into the second week of surveillance on a village that he’s pretty convinced is empty. Steve keeps his eye pressed to the scope and grinds his teeth until they hurt while Sam fiddles with his phone for what he claims are important mission reasons (‘I swear to God Steve if you make one more Angry Birds joke I’m gonna kick your ass out of this tree’).

Then one night Sam is an idiot and leaves his walkie on when he tells Steve he has to piss but is really making a phone call. He talks for several minutes about Bucky’s progress with the neurologist before there’s a sound like a charging rhinoceros and Steve barrels through the trees and knocks Sam on his ass.

‘He’s been awake this _whole goddam time_?’ Steve yells, and it’s a good thing their _stealthy reconnaissance_ mission was totally fake or they’d both be in the shit right now.

‘I’ll call you back,’ Sam says seconds before Steve grabs the phone and throws it against a tree. ‘You need to calm down.’

‘I don’t need to do _shit_.’ Steve is shaking with rage, fists clenched so tight his knuckles are white.

‘Look, Steve… yeah, he’s awake. He’s been getting treatment. Wakanda’s doctors, they’re the best in the world, and they thought it would be best if I got you out of the picture for a little while so Bucky could focus on Bucky without your whole doomed romance thing getting him all confused.’ Steve jerks back like he’s been shot and Sam shrugs apologetically. ‘He’s doing really well, Steve. It seems like they made the right call.’

‘I don’t want to hear this right now,’ Steve says, his voice low and quiet. He turns and stalks back into the trees and Sam follows, because there’s more than one idiot Labrador in this relationship. He finds Steve throwing stuff into his pack.

‘So you’re just going to abandon the mission? No matter what it does to him?’

Steve brushes past him, pauses, jabs a finger into his ribs hard enough to bruise. ‘I’ve done my time waiting. That’s it.’

He charges off into the trees, leaving Sam to follow after.

**…**

WAKANDA

 Bucky is having a bad day. He’s crouched on top of the panther statue and there’s a crowd of people down below, yelling at him. His skin feels slick and he thinks it’s just sweat but he looks down and he’s covered in blood. He doesn’t remember how he got here or why he hurts so much.

‘Bucky! James! It’s alright, it’s ok, you can come down now!’ Jahi is calling to him. Her pristine white suit is covered in blood. Did he hurt her? He draws back, pressing himself against the panther’s head and out of sight.

Bucky can hear orders being shouted, guns being loaded and cocked. Jahi is telling everyone to calm down. He can hear Wanda demanding to be let through. His chest and stomach and throat are burning. He reaches up and finds a wad of cotton wool taped to his neck, runs his hands over his torso and yelps in pain. There are wounds there, shallow but ugly. He tries to wipe the blood off but his hands are covered in it, all of him is covered in it, and he doesn’t understand who attacked him or why.

‘Bucky, please, we’re not upset. You didn’t ruin the mission. You can come down,’ Jahi calls, voice steady. He peers down at her. She looks calm, a hand extended to him like she’s trying to help him out of a damn cab. The blood she’s covered in must be his. ‘This is only a minor setback. Please, let us keep helping you.’

A golden light appears on the edge of his vision, pushing in behind the doctor. ‘What the hell is going on here?’ the light demands to know. People part around it. Bucky blinks in confusion until the light resolves itself into Steve. He looks rough, like a freshly fallen angel. They make eye contact and Steve goes white.

‘The hell you been doing to yourself, Cap?’ Bucky slurs. Then everything goes black and he’s falling again.


	5. We're Gone (But We Don't Know Where)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the big delay with this chapter, had a really busy week! I meant to get this up Friday but I got called into work. Sorry this chapter isn't terribly thrilling but hopefully I should be back to one a day now.
> 
> Warnings this chapter for blood and vague medical procedures.

Steve dives and catches Bucky as he falls. He’s knocked to the ground and the wind is punched out of his chest by Bucky’s weight. Wanda and a Wakandan woman he doesn’t recognise are all over them in a matter of seconds, trying to get a response from Bucky. He looks dead.

Steve rolls them over, still trying to regain his breath, clawing at Bucky’s face and pleading at him to wake up. ‘Don’t do this to me Bucky, don’t, you can’t, wake up, please, don’t do this…’ Someone hands a syringe to the Wakandan woman and she presses it into Bucky’s arm before Steve realises what’s going on.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he barks, grabbing her wrist.

‘This is just a muscle relaxant, so he doesn’t panic and hurt himself when he wakes up,’ she says calmly, shrugging him off. ‘You need to move so we can get him on a gurney.’

‘Like hell I do. Not until someone tells me what the fuck is going on.’ Steve crouches over his friend like a protective she-lion over its brood. ‘He was meant to be getting _treatment_.’

‘That’s a lotta pennies in the swear jar, Steve,’ Sam says from behind him. ‘Let Jahi do her thing.’

Steve’s mouth sets into a stubborn line and a vein pops in his jaw. ‘Someone better tell me what’s going on.’

‘At ease, soldier,’ Bucky mumbles, patting Steve’s face. His touch leaves bloody smears. Steve grabs his fingers, pushing gore-soaked strands of hair out of his eyes.

‘Buck? What’ve they been doing to you?’ Steve asks accusingly.

‘S’ok, love, you just let the good doc do her job.’ He slips unconscious again and Steve is shoved out of the way so Bucky can be hoisted onto a gurney. He’s is left sitting on his ass at the feet of the giant panther, Sam standing over him.

‘You said he was doing well,’ he says numbly.

‘We weren’t supposed to be back for another two weeks. Jahi and T’Challa were confident he’d be better by then.’ Sam shrugs his shoulders apologetically.

‘Did that look better to you?’ Steve waves at the receding gurney, at the panther, at the puddle of blood on the ground. He realises he has started crying and decides to run with it. He sobs a few times then suddenly punches the ground, over and over, shoulders heaving. ‘The hell am I doing any of this for when I can’t protect one fucking person?’

‘Whoa there buddy, don’t make me hafta wash your mouth out with soap,’ Sam says, hauling Steve to his feet. ‘Now I’m pretty sure you just broke your damn hand, didn’t you?’

Steve nods, holding up his shaking fist. He’s managed to leave a small crater in the rock but his knuckles are still shredded.

‘Ok, so why don’t we go visit your friend and make sure you both get patched up?’ Steve nods weakly and lets himself be led. He’s still crying and leaning heavily against Sam, which Sam is pretty sure must be what it feels like to have Mount Vesuvius relying on you for physical support.

Wanda is sitting with Bucky when they reach Bucky’s room, her hands resting on his temples. His expression is peaceful. Steve tries to focus on what’s happening above Bucky’s neck because below it the doctors seem to be pulling him apart and putting him back together again.

‘You, come here,’ the woman from earlier orders crisply. He sits obediently where she points. ‘I thought you superheroes were supposed to arrive on time to save the day, not at the worst possible moment.’

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he mumbles as she takes his hand and sprays a clear liquid over his knuckles. He grimaces as the bandage tightens over his broken skin. She beckons to a nurse and they bring over a needle attached to a series of tubes.

‘I can assure you that we have made a great deal of progress. Your friend has come a long way,’ she says, giving him a weary but earnest smile. She has a kind face, and Steve feels less on edge. ‘It seems today we stumbled upon a, uh… self-destruct mechanism, so to speak.’

‘You mean he did that to himself?’ Steve gasps, horrified.

‘Yes, but the good news is that he was able to fight back almost immediately. What you witnessed was the aftermath of one of his blackout periods, which can occur at times of heightened emotion. In this instance it triggered his flight response, but he was able to recollect himself before he got too far.’ She smiles again, squeezing Steve’s hand. ‘He’s doing so well, Steve. Truly.’

‘You said “in this instance” he decided to flee. What happens the other times he blacks out?’ Her smile drops and she looks exhausted. Steve thinks he is letting her see how tired she is, and he is grateful.

‘In the initial weeks his responses were frequently violent. He asked us to put him back under several times, but the King insisted he was confident in my abilities.’ She rubs her eyes. ‘Things have been going smoothly for almost a whole fortnight and we felt sure that we had uncovered all of his triggers, but the depths of what they did to him…’

They sit silently for several moments as Steve watches the doctors finish bandaging and cleaning Bucky’s chest.

‘Still, I have a theory,’ Jahi says quietly, tone thoughtful, ‘that if we have uncovered programming aimed at self-destruction then we must surely, surely have reached the final layer of conditioning. If we’ve neutralised the impulses towards total compliance and outward-directed violence, then surely destruction of the asset would be considered the last possible resort.’

‘So… so he’s really better now?’ Steve asks, sceptical. She laughs softly in response.

‘That’s really a subjective definition. Will he still be a danger to others if he happens to come into contact with a HYDRA agent with knowledge of his programming? No, I don’t believe so. But… he has severe PTSD, the extent of which is still not clear. We’ve been able to remove much of the _intended_ effects of what was done to him, but we still don’t fully know or understand _what_ was done, or _how_ , or how much.’ She sighs deeply, then smiles again. ‘Still, PTSD is a relatively simple illness compared to what we’ve been dealing with so far. And your friend is lucky enough to have the care of the world’s top neuroscientist.’ She winks. Steve smiles tightly.

Wanda comes over and gives him a hug. Her arms barely reach around him. Bucky is unconscious, an oxygen mask resting on his face. His hair is still matted with blood. They sit in silence and watch Bucky’s chest rise and fall.


	6. Old Friends, Forgotten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter may...not... have any warnings for things? Ok warning for the second sentence which mentions wounds never mind.
> 
> I hope you've all been enjoying this fic, there's one more chapter after this plus an epilogue probably!

Bucky wakes to find a hand in his.

He’s lying on the couch, aching from ugly, red wounds covering a torso thick and crackly with spray-on bandage. Steve is sitting on the floor below him, head resting against the arm on the couch, gripping his hand. Bucky tries to take a deep breath but it hitches in his throat; he cranes his neck forward, brushing his lips across the top of Steve’s hair. Steve lets out an appalling snort of a snore and his head rolls forward onto his chest.

‘Wake up, short stuff,’ Bucky whispers, and blows in Steve’s ear.

Steve wakes up with all the grace of a drunk Doberman, spinning around to glare at him. As soon as their eyes meet Steve’s face softens, and he presses a hand to Bucky’s forehead.

‘Hey, Buck. How you feeling?’

‘Like we’re back in ‘Nam,’ Bucky says, grimacing. ‘After a long hike and a fire fight.’

‘We- we weren’t in ‘Nam, Bucky,’ Steve says softly.

‘Right. Right. Sorry.’ Bucky groans and buries his face in the pillow. ‘Just me, then.’

‘Yeah? You want to tell me about it?’ Steve asks, squeezing his hand. Bucky raises his head enough to give him a withering look with one eye.

‘You ain’t my therapist,’ he says, and Steve looks wounded.

‘I just think- I want to know what’s going on. With you, with everything.’ Steve leans his head back against the arm of the couch, jutting his chin out stubbornly. ‘I’m sick of being left out of the loop.’

‘You know none of this was my idea,’ Bucky mumbles, pulling his hand away. Steve chases after it, catching it in both of his.

‘I know, I’m sorry. This isn’t about me.’ Steve does some kind of incredibly ungainly series of motions that allow him to sit on the couch next to Bucky without letting go of his hand. ‘You gave me a big fright, is all. And I could’ve been here helping you, instead of sitting around in trees watching empty villages.’

‘You sure you weren’t in ‘Nam?’ Bucky says and they smile at each other.

‘I wish I’d been here.’ Steve holds Bucky’s hand to his mouth, working up the nerve to kiss it.

‘I… I don’t think you would have helped,’ Bucky whispers, and even though he can’t bring himself to look at Steve he can still feel him deflating.

‘Ok. As long as it was for the best,’ Steve says, and lets go of his hand. He pats Bucky on his good shoulder and leaves, and Bucky feels too guilty and miserable to do anything to stop him.

**…**

Steve is wandering aimlessly through the building when he hears Tony Stark’s voice coming through an open doorway. He darts to the wall, leaning his head forward until he can see in; it’s a generic meeting room, all sleek cobalt furniture and big screens. T’Challa is talking to Tony via one of the screens. Tony, for his part, appears to be inside some kind of supply cupboard.  

‘-pleased to know that’s all be taken care of, by the way, although it doesn’t seem like he’s been making any new friends,’ Tony is saying. ‘The reports are… honestly a little alarming.’

‘He’s back under close watch now, though it is doubtful that with Barnes awake this behaviour will continue to be a problem.’ T’Challa’s eyes slide to the door and Steve is suddenly acutely aware that his presence is known and, undoubtedly, he is in trouble.

‘Yeah, well, you just make sure Golden Boy keeps his nose clean.’ Tony crosses his arms and frowns, falling uncharacteristically silent.

‘We’re confident the two of them will be safe,’ T’Challa says.

‘That’s what you told me two days ago, and now I hear that the cyborg’s decided to become a one-man slasher movie,’ Tony snaps. ‘I’m still not sure I shouldn’t be telling the authorities where they are.’

‘That would be… unwise,’ T’Challa replies coldly.

‘Don’t worry buddy, I’m not actually gonna call the fuzz.’ Tony rubs his eyes and waves a hand dismissively. ‘Alright, you’ve probably got important crown-polishing to get back to, or whatever it is you royal types do.’

‘Goodbye, Mr Stark. We’ll continue to keep you informed of their progress.’ Tony mumbles something darkly and the feed cuts out. Steve slinks into the room and T’Challa casts a stern eye over him.

‘So he’s been checking up, huh?’ Steve asks sheepishly.

‘Mr Stark has so few friends. It seems he has a very hard time giving any of them up completely.’ T’Challa pats a file on the desk in front of him. ‘It helps that Dr Jahi has been sending him exceedingly detailed reports on the full extent of what was done to our friend Sergeant Barnes. Guilt is a powerful persuader.’

‘She seems like a good doctor.’

‘The best.’ They stand awkwardly for several minutes with their arms crossed.

‘So, uh…’ Steve starts, ‘I guess some people aren’t too happy with me.’

‘You don’t seem to have had a great deal of care for matters of foreign diplomacy when leaving your trails of carnage.’ T’Challa fiddles with a remote and the screens fill with images of Steve’s handiwork over the past month and a half. ‘You should be extremely grateful that Tony is still willing to clean up your mess.’

Steve turns pink and averts his eyes from the images of bashed and broken HYDRA agents.

‘I didn’t ask for him to do that.’ His jaw clenches and unclenches. ‘This is war. Things get messy.’

‘War, is it?’ T’Challa frowns. ‘You’re a fugitive from half the world’s governments, including your own. HYDRA isn’t a country. It’s barely even an organisation any more, thanks to you. So who are you fighting for?’

Steve glares at him, jaw clenched so tight it’s amazing his teeth don’t shatter. He can hear Bucky’s voice in his head, an echo from a 1937 post-fight patch-up. _Steve Rogers, so ready to fight for what’s right he was born swingin’. Socked the doctor in the jaw for lookin’ at his Ma wrong then socked him again for not sayin’ thanks the first time_. He sags.

‘I would’ve stopped to help Buck get better, but he doesn’t even want me here.’ He rubs his eyes, pressing them until it hurts. ‘There’s not a whole lot else I know how to do. It’s what I was built for.’ He laughs bitterly, without humour.

‘I can assure you, Sergeant Barnes most definitely wants you here,’ T’Challa says, squeezing Steve’s shoulder sympathetically. ‘I am confident that we did the right thing by sending you away, but the two of you need to work out the parameters of your relationship for yourselves now. That means you deciding for yourself if you are going to prioritise Barnes’ healing or your own desires.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Steve snarls. ‘Like Buck isn’t ever my priority? After everything I’ve done for him?’

T’Challa raises his hands placatingly. ‘As I’ve said, I’m leaving that up to you. Although I cannot speak for Dr Jahi. And now I must beg your leave, I have state matters to attend to.’

He leaves Steve to stew in the empty room.


	7. Suckers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter! Short but sweet, with no content warnings. 
> 
> There may be an epilogue coming if you want it, I don't think I've left this setting behind yet.

It’s almost two full days before Bucky sees Steve again and he feels like a junkie, strung out and waiting for his next fix. He’s slumped on the couch when Steve enters and without meaning to he’s on his feet, arm outstretched. Steve’s face crumples and in a few short strides they’re holding each other and Steve is sniffling into his shoulder.

‘Whoa there Stevie, turn down the waterworks, you’re getting my shirt wet,’ Bucky jokes awkwardly. Steve responds by blowing his nose loudly into Bucky’s neck.

Bucky makes several loud noises of disgust and pushes Steve away, then pulls the shirt awkwardly over his head. Steve stares at him, eyes flicking between the ruin of his shoulder and the scars covering his chest, brows pulled tightly together.

‘’S’lright, Cap, the docs fixed me up real good,’ Bucky says, cupping Steve’s cheek and pulling his face up until their eyes meet. ‘It’s alright, sweetheart, you don’t need to worry about me.’

Steve’s cheeks turn bright pink and he mumbles, ‘Asshole.’

‘Huh?’ Bucky looks taken aback.

‘Y’know the shit you’ve put me through?’ Steve taps Bucky’s good shoulder with his fist.

‘Y’know the shit _I’ve_ put me through?’ he replies and they both laugh stiffly. Then his voice drops and he asks, ‘Where you been, doll?’

‘Self-flagellating,’ Steve quips.

‘Not beating yourself up on my account?’

‘I think of all the people I’ve been beating up on your account lately, I’ve still come out looking the best,’ Steve says lightly, but his eyes are dark.

‘Always have,’ Bucky says, grinning. ‘You been beating a lot of people up for me?’

‘Where the hell ya think I’ve been the past coupla months?’ Steve grins back. ‘Had to even the score, didn’t I?’ He feints at Bucky and the two duck and weave, wrestling lightly like it’s decades ago.

‘Yeah? You been killin’ Nazis for me?’ Bucky goes to tackle Steve round the waist just as Steve freezes, and the pair fall awkwardly onto the couch. ‘Ow, Steve, the hell?’

‘I haven’t killed anyone since the war,’ Steve says quietly. He slides down the couch, away from Bucky.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I kinda figured when you were pulling me off those guys back in Bucharest.’ Bucky rubs the stubble at the back of his head. ‘I’m kinda glad, actually. That you haven’t. I hated seeing you kill guys during the war. It made your face all weird after, like you were gonna be sick.’

Steve grunts and moves back a little closer. Bucky scoots across to make up the distance and leans into Steve’s side.

‘Are you ok, Buck?’ Steve asks quietly.

‘No.’ Bucky takes Steve’s hand when he hears him sniffle. ‘I mean, I’m ok-er. I’m not better, but I’m better than I was. And I’m glad you’re here.’ Steve grunts again.

‘I’m sorry about what I said before, that having you here wouldn’t have helped,’ Bucky says quietly.

‘No. No, you were right. I would’ve gotten in the way, made it about me. It smarts something fierce but it’s true.’ Steve wipes his eyes. ‘If you need me to go away again for a while so you can get better, I will. I’ll even go paint pretty pictures of waterfalls for a year or something so I can stay out of trouble.’

‘Like hell you could stay out of trouble for a whole year,’ Bucky laughs, and Steve jabs him in the ribs.

‘Yeah yeah, I know, I’m a sucker for punishment.’ Steve puts an arm around Bucky’s shoulders.  ‘But I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get you well again.’ He starts patting Bucky’s hair, awkwardly at first, but Bucky leans into the touch.

‘This? This is enough,’ Bucky says, relaxing into Steve’s side. ‘This is what it takes.’

They sit in silence, holding hands and trading soft kisses. The setting sun turns the mists the colour of chlorine gas and the night is the blackest they have known.


End file.
